


I haven't got a paragraph

by sciencemyfiction



Category: Pocket Monsters: X & Y | Pokemon X & Y Versions
Genre: Aftercare, Bondage, Consensual Kink, M/M, control play
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-06
Updated: 2015-10-22
Packaged: 2018-04-25 02:59:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4944133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sciencemyfiction/pseuds/sciencemyfiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Driven by grief and strange dreams following Lysandre's death, Professor Sycamore decides to take a sabbatical to get away from the source of his anguish. On the way, he begins to collect strange ore that resonates when near himself and Garchomp. Perhaps a new scientific finding can help take his mind off of the past?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ryttu3k](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryttu3k/gifts).



Lysandre smells like burnt coffee and stale honey; sweat, too many days not washing his coat; like the earthy granite dust of an excavation site. He smells like lonely nights and busy days. He has a permanent frown that eases as he eases the knot out of Augustine's tie, and Augustine stands perfectly still. He's still dripping wet, Lysandre is, like he doesn't care that he just came in from the cold, like he doesn't care that he ought to be dead. 

 _Don't remember that._  
  
It's not like it was, when it really happened, when Lysandre suddenly gripped Augustine's lapels, and begged him to tell someone, anyone. Begged him to fight harder. Begged him to care about what would happen to the world if he didn't.   
  
_Don't remember that._  
  
Instead, Lysandre smiles confidently, bunches up the slack of Augustine's tie in his fist and pulls tight, watches the way Augustine's whole body goes still, then limp, responding to that slight-but-undeniable-pressure on his throat. He can still breathe, but as Lysandre slowly tightens his grip, the focus of all of Augustine's thoughts shifts and slides, coming to rest on the act of breathing, on the pressure on his throat, on waiting, keyed and curious, for orders. But he didn't do anything wrong (this is the punishment game), and Lysandre didn't give him any orders, and doesn't give them now, and the alarms flare in Augustine's mind, telling him something is wrong, something is wrong.   
  
_This isn't real, but don't let yourself remember or_ \--  
  
\--

Sunlight streams through the window of his office, shining on his abandoned glass of water, the bottle of pills he's been taking for allergies. He jerks awake with a sharp breath, heaves (sick feeling), registers itchy eyes and sore throat and "Ah, me," he mutters to himself, fumbling with the bottle for the recommended dosage (two pills, he double checks; yes, two pills), stuffing the little round droplets of murky night into his mouth and swallowing them dry. 

There is heat in his face and shifting his legs is uncomfortable, reminds him of constriction that he does not want others to notice. He recrosses his legs awkwardly, head pounding, nose stuffy, and drains the glass of water, too.   
  
It's all fading now, the dream. He knows Lysandre was in it; for Augustine, these days, that is always so. Maybe he should accept the offer to take a sabbatical, to travel the world. Be less of a burden. Maybe he just needs time to process everything. Maybe he needs a change of scenery.   
  
Maybe he needs to have had the temerity even just once to stand up to Lysandre instead of desperately wish for his world to become a reality.   
  
"Professor Sycamore?" Crackling voice on his desk. He locates the intercom under a stack of half-read research papers he needs to get around to proofing for his assistants, presses the button to answer the call.   
  
"Yes, I'm awake. What is it?"  
  
"I'm leaving for the day, Professor-- I have a family emergency. I just wanted you to know where I've gone."   
  
Kind of them, to let him retain this position. Should he not be tried for Team Flare's crimes? It's no secret that he and Lysandre were great friends. It's no secret that he could have done more to stop Lysandre and didn't. Some of his colleagues have been avoiding him since it all came out on the news, others have been treating him like he must have been trapped, like he is made of glass. He knows about the whispers of abuse, and they are about the only thing that can stir him to anger, anymore. It was never quite right, yes, but it was not abuse. 

Remembering to answer, belatedly, he clicks the button again and laughs sheepishly. "I appreciate the sentiment, but you mustn't delay on my account-- hurry, hurry! I'll see you later."

A pause; then: "Okay. Bye, Professor! Take care!"

Is it too late in the day for coffee? It never is, right? He pulls on a scarf and a coat to go over his labcoat, he does not want to stand out today. He leaves the office, too, walks down the street and around the corner to the nearest PokeCafe. 

\--

"Augustine," this is three weeks later and in Johto and Augustine could despair, bent over his desk and clawing its surface for purchase so desperately that the thin lacquer over the wood is getting under his fingernails. This is a memory: five years ago. The first time. Only when it really happened they were in a- a- a-

"An operahouse," he whispers, and then they are there, really there, Lysandre messily sucking him off under a desk while Augustine can't sit still, can't handle the idea of this man kneeling before him, this beautiful man with burning lips and tongue on him, and just like five years ago Augustine is  _ticklish_  and starts to laugh. "Oh-- oh no, don't-- if you lick there I'll--"

Lysandre was not very experienced, and in his excitement, had mistaken Augustine's warning for a sign of near-climax. He proudly licked more vigorously at the glans of Augustine's erect penis, and then pulled back and bumped his head against the desk in surprise and chagrin when Augustine burst into a helpless fit of panicked giggles.   
  
" _No,_ not there, I'll kick! Mercy! I'm so sorry, I--"

Lysandre in the dream does not flee in a confused huff and so Augustine can simply feel time slide into the reconciliation back at Lysandre's cafe, the backroom, smelling strongly of stale honey. As big and broad a man as was Lysandre he had been capable of looking so small and lost when he was out of his depth, and he did not know how to handle his desire to be, as he'd put it, useful to Augustine Sycamore. It had all been a rather heady responsibility. Now, though, Lysandre is looking him right in the eye, and mouthing something, and he becomes suddenly sharply aware that they are not in the cafe or actually anywhere, but everywhere, in all places, in a nauseating whirligig of the world. 

"What?" Augustine gasps for breath, but things are spinning so quickly that it seems like there is no oxygen left to breathe. "What are you saying? What are you trying to--"

He jerks awake in the airport, neck sore from falling asleep sitting. He's missed his flight. He reschedules for a later one, apologizes profusely, buys dinner, calls back to Lumiose City to be sure the pokemon in the lab are all being well cared for. They are, apparently, clamoring for him to return, which makes him feel a trifle guilty for bringing only Garchomp. 

Still, he finds he can't shake the vague sensation of something terrible coming, and he can't imagine what would be worse than what's already happened. 

While waiting for his new flight, he spends a half hour in the restroom, washing his face until his skin is pink and sore from being so vigorously rubbed. The flight is ultimately uneventful, and Garchomp helps lull him back to sleep, guarding him faithfully in the seat to his left. 

 


	2. Chapter 2

The weather is brutally hot this time of year in Kanto, and maybe it would have been wiser to stay by the coast but maybe that wasn't the point. Maybe that's why Augustine is here, near the peak of Mount Moon, where the late summer air is only tolerable because it's moving, where the heavy heat lays thick like shimmering waves of water over the land below, literally steaming off the surface of the world.

Garchomp has kept him from pushing too hard. Made him eat, sleep, drink from the streams they pass, take time to keep clean. They're on no deadline, no tight schedule and yet Augustine feels as though he must keep walking, keep going, and sometimes walks for entire days without remembering to stop until Garchomp forces the point with a despondent yowl.

"You're right old friend," he says, all apology, when the moon comes up and he is still climbing, drawn toward the sky by some feeling of restlessness or need. Maybe this is just a dangerous desire, maybe he is at risk of self-harm? But Augustine has no intent to die, nor suffer. Just to be where he feels he is needed, and that is just past this mountain, just above this plateau.

But Garchomp wails again, and this time, Augustine really hears the worry and weariness in its voice and he's aghast at himself, suddenly.

"I'm so sorry-- I'm ashamed. You're right, we should rest. It can wait, it can wait."

When he acts more like his usual self, Garchomp seems more at ease, and that is comforting, too. He tells it about the Kanto region, about Mount Moon and the Clefairies common here, about the legends of this land and how they differ from home, and it listens, rapt. They eat their rations, they make camp under the stars, and Garchomp stands watch over the path while Augustine drifts to sleep.

Part of him has been avoiding this, avoiding the risk of more dreams.

But in a way, it's nice to see Lysandre again, even if it means he wakes with a knot in his throat, with his hands a little shaky.

Part of him imagines what it would have been like if he were there, when it happened. Would it have been different? Could he have changed anything?

Could he at least have held Lysandre in those last moments, lied to him, told him that things were changed now, better, now, that he had succeeded in his grand plan to free the world?

Would that have been better, or worse?

He will dream of that, it seems, and nothing else: that question and all possible answers, for the rest of his life. At least, it feels that way right now.

\--

The morning is kinder than the night was, soft and strewn with dew, the cooler breath of air on his face a welcome change from the sweltering heat that had sent him off to sleep.   
  
And they are not alone.   
  
Garchomp warbles kindly to the gaggle of Clefairy that have assembled since Augustine departed to the realm of sleep, clearly in midst of a complex discussion. They chime and trill in their absolutely beautiful, bell-soft voices, unfrightened even in Garchomp's presence. When the pokemon notice that Augustine is awake, they do not scatter: instead, they turn expectant, trusting eyes to him and swarm him, caroling excitedly.   
  
And he laughs, because he is crying, because their kindness and sweetness is beyond what he deserves, and tells them all that they are wonderful, and Garchomp leans against his shoulder and softly croons. Augustine has not let himself cry since the incident, bit his lip through it so often he'd thought he was done mastering it. That morning, he thinks of Lysandre's cold body somewhere under the rubble of a ruined dream and he cries, he wails, he weeps because he  _wasn't ready_ , no matter how much he'd thought he was. 

"I didn't want to let him go," he tells one of the Clefairy later, when he is making lunch and the others are busy hunting fruits and mushrooms from the surrounding wilderness, extracting a promise that he will share the finished soup with them. "I didn't want to think about living the rest of my life like this. It feels-- meaningless sometimes."

A Clefable returns with the rest of the Clefairies, walking with a little walking stick fashioned from a metal pole that must once have been part of a roadsign. Its eyes are sharp and its voice is sonorous and resonant when it speaks to him. He does his best to understand what it asks, and offers it first taste of the soup-- after a quick sip to prove it isn't poisoned, of course.   
  
He "loses" his phone for the next several days and stays there, making daily visits to the mountain-side pokecenter but otherwise avoiding human contact entirely. The Clefable spends hours by his campfire, listening to his stories as eagerly as the Clefairies around it, though it never cheers him on like they do. Sleep isn't easier with them around, but it gets less horrible: Augustine becomes accustomed to waking up in a blanketing bunch of pink fur, with Garchomp's face near his, and one day in the second week, he finally stops feeling like crying.

"Ah, my friend," Augustine says to Garchomp, warmly and with stronger feeling than he's managed in months. It croons sadly, gladly, and nuzzles his face with its own as if in great relief to have finally found him at last, and he feels a ghost of sorrow and regret shudder over him, reaching out to pat its back. "I'm so sorry I worried you. Thank you for taking care of me until now."

\--

 _The moon rock is glowing_ , Augustine thinks to himself, drowsily, sometime later and halfway to Vermilion city, in a small room in an inn on a road somewhere. The Clefable had, with ponderous ceremony and great trust, bequeathed him a specific chunk of quartzite laced by gleaming green crystal, and Augustine has brought it with him, kept it close to himself and secret. Not moonstone-- not the opalescent, polished stones that are known for their occasional evolutionary qualities in reaction to certain pokemon-- but nonetheless, a rock Augustine had been sure from the first second was not of this planet, not originally.   
  
It's so terribly late that he can't imagine why he even woke up in the first place, and so for a time he very nearly returns to sleep, staring across the room at the drawn blinds, faintly glowing with the streetlights beyond, and the moon rock on the table between himself and the window.   
  
But at the last second, he sees it-- movement-- a silhouette.   
  
Someone is in his room.   
  
"--Garchomp?"  
  
"No."  
 __  
Lysandre.  


  
He's awake, or he could swear he is awake, in an instant, he's throwing off the covers and shouting accusations confusedly, mind not parsing his thoughts quickly enough for what he'd like. Augustine is lunging across the room at shadows before he fully registers that that's all they are, and then he is standing, sweatsoaked and shaking, by the small windowside table. 

The moon rock is glowing, flashing at him softly, but no one is there. 

 

 


End file.
